Clips and Phrases
by Rhianwen
Summary: An unlikely couple and the moments they share. VioletMirage entry for 1sentence challenge on livejournal.


Clips and Phrases

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Disclaimer: The characters herewithin are the creations and property of the guys who came up with them, and are borrowed respectfully for this story. The fifty themes are from the 1sentence community on livejournal, as is the general construction and concept behind the story.

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Summary: An unlikely couple and the moments they share. Violet/Mirage entry for 1sentence challenge on livejournal.

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#01 – Motion

There's something about the way Violet moves when she fights that makes Mirage wonder why she ever thought that the girl's use of two powers simultaneously was the most extraordinary thing about her.

#02 – Cool

People who know all about Jack-Jack are few and far between, so it was only a matter of time before wary friendship turned into _it's short notice, but…/sure I'll watch him_ friendship between Mom and that Mirage girl; Violet almost explodes trying not to laugh when they return to find her near tears, cool demeanour all but evaporated, pleading with giggling, gravity-defying toddler to stop and come down now.

#03 – Young

Whenever she looks at Violet, she tries to remember being that _young_, but even at fifteen, she doesn't know that she had the same sweet innocence, matched with a level of common sense that she _still_ doesn't have.

#04 – Last

They've been sitting in this coffee shop for about four hours (and three cappuccinos apiece), and in the last two, one or the other has stood to leave about seven times, put on her coat, bid her coffee-pal goodnight, but then the conversation strikes back up and before they know it they're ordering a fourth.

#05 – Wrong

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best way to show her gratitude to Mirage for offering to give her and Kari a lift, but she couldn't resist sending her on three consecutive wrong turns, just for a little extra time to talk.

#06 – Gentle

She just stopped by to return some books, but when she finds Mirage sniffling and surrounded by crumpled tissues and empty Tylenol Cold bottles, she orders her immediately to bed and tucks her in with the steel-reinforced gentleness the blonde thinks she must have learned from her mother.

#07 – One

"I don't know," Violet says innocently when the blonde expresses her relief, after being dragged into her room and put forcibly to bed, that she never got the chance to have her ass kicked by the family's eldest child one-on-one; "I think it would have been kind of fun to have a tussle with a cute girl in a pencil skirt."

#08 – Thousand

Violet knows, _realistically_, that anyone can have a nightmare; but it still makes her feel a little better when she finds out that her _coffee-pal_ still wakes up trembling and very, very sick more nights than not, because that's a _lot_ of people Mirage helped to kill, and Violet's pretty convinced that if someone's got the capacity to see evil for evil, it'll rip at them whether they've taken one life or a thousand.

#09 – King

"Well, _I'd_ say they're one in the same, but my perspective might be skewed," she points out with a low, slightly sad little laugh when Violet asks idly if she thinks the guy at the cash desk is _cute_ or _nerdy_; "I _did_ spend about six years with the King of the Nerds."

#10 – Learn

When she finds out that the pretty dark-haired girl blushing and swearing her to secrecy doesn't _really_ like guys _all_ that much, she's the perfect supportive friend; when she finds out that there's a _reason_ Violet is telling her this before she even told her family, she nods warily; when she finds out just what that reason is, she pretends to hear the phone ringing and runs away.

#11 – Blur

Mirage is trying to behave like the _responsible adult_ here, but when Violet gives her that _look_, it's impossible to refuse her anything, and all the reasons that this is a bad idea start to blur around the edges because all her attention is on those _eyes_, big and sad and pleading and so beautiful it's almost painful.

#12 – Wait

"But I don't turn eighteen until December!" Violet protests, almost a wail, when the older girl stops her, not without some reluctance, before her hand can wander any further; "You're going to make me wait _ten months_ to do more than kiss you?"

#13 – Change

It's a good thing it's a _public_ change room, Violet thinks wisely, sneaking one last peek and blushing brightly as she catches her lover doing the same, or else they might not actually get to the _pool_ before it closes.

#14 – Command

"So, we're _happy_ about this," Bob Parr mutters to his wife thoughtfully as two girls beam nervously at them, because he's recalling vividly Helen's strict order that he was _not_ to involve himself in Violet's love life any more than strictly necessary, and he thinks it's probably safer to follow Helen's lead; "Got it."

#15 – Hold

Violet has a new game: whenever she finds Mirage on the phone and trying to explain that no, there's no need for a carpet cleaning service in an apartment with full hardwood, she ambles over, expression the picture of innocence, and sees how long it takes before the befuddled salesman finds himself put abruptly on hold.

#16 – Need

It was _very_ silly, she knew it eve at the time, and Mr. Parr thought she was crazy (even though Helen's eyes glimmered with understanding laughter), but Violet didn't stop giggling for a good ten minutes, and she seemed anything but annoyed, so Mirage is glad she took the adorable brat at her word when she told her over the phone, theatrically despondent, that she'd _never_ be able to sleep without a goodnight kiss.

#17 – Vision

"Okay, no more contacts; you're hot in glasses," Violet announced firmly, already hiding the saline, when she catches Mirage in the process of snatching off the glasses that she only wears during allergy season.

#18 – Attention

"Sweetie, I know that trigonometry is boring, but I think it still deserves a _little_ attention," Mirage laughed when their ill-thought-out _tutoring session_ became derailed for the third time in an hour.

#19 – Soul

It's a good thing she's not a religious person, Mirage thinks absently, watching with a tiny, fond smile as Violet murmurs in her sleep and hugs the pillow tighter, because there's no way she'd knowingly put this girl's soul in jeopardy, even by loving her.

#20 – Picture

"Violet, will you stop _doing_ that?" she huffs, caught between annoyance and laughter, as she ends up with yet _another_ Polaroid of a disembodied tee-shirt and pair of shorts floating next to the flower pots on her balcony.

#21 – Fool

When they're waylaid on their way back to Violet's tiny apartment minutes from the university by a trio of muggers, both agree, without words, to just _let_ these poor idiots think that they've found two helpless, defenseless girls.

#22 – Mad

And sure, they're _angry_ when Violet notices the one guy's hand moving for the hem of her lover's skirt and abruptly goes from _defenseless_ to _lethal_, but at least they don't have to seethe about it for very long before they end up in an unconscious heap behind a trash can.

#23 – Child

"It was easier to buy presents for Jack-Jack when he was a _baby_ instead of a _kid_," Violet mutters absently as she replaces yet another gift on the toystore shelf, and Mirage only laughs because she knows that her girlfriend adores _both_ her little brothers and wouldn't change a thing about them.

#24 – Now

Mirage doesn't use her newfound _secret weapon_ very often, but it was certainly a nice surprise when she happened upon that exquisitely sensitive place behind Violet's ear, and their plans for _right after the movie_ became _right now_ before they could even make it out of the kitchen.

#25 – Shadow

As much as Violet may lament that she'd like _just one night_ where they didn't have to stay constantly watchful for dark figures lurking in the shadows, Mirage knows very well that she's completely outgrown her adolescent desire to be _normal_.

#26 – Goodbye

"You said your boss never knows what's going on around him; maybe he wouldn't notice if you just didn't show up for a couple more days?" Violet suggests wistfully when the far-too-short long weekend visit comes to an end and school starts feeling too far away from home – and her – again.

#27 – Hide

"Well, then, maybe you should look for something that doesn't," she suggests with a casual shrug when Violet, on the hunt for a dress for a friend's wedding, sighs that she can't find a cute summer dress that'll hide her bony elbows.

#28 – Fortune

Mirage is no better at this now than she was back when she was on the _other_ side, trying to keep busy so she's not just sitting around, waiting for word that Violet and her family weren't so lucky this time.

#29 – Safe

And about the _only_ reason she hasn't put her foot down yet, _for the girl's own safety_, is because she knows how much Violet loves it – and how quickly she'd beat her up if she tried.

#30 – Ghost

"Women," Bob mutters, shaking his head and trying to hide a smile when his cheerful hello is greeted by three terrified shrieks, from his wife, daughter, and sort-of-daughter-in-law, and soon after a stern, slightly breathelss lecture from Helen on why _you don't sneak up on people while they're watching scary movies in the dark, Bob!_

#31 – Book

The ringing phone goes completely unheeded by both girls, because they're busy being curled up in a contented little ball, reading from the same book – even though Violet wonders, baffled, who the heck reads quantum physics textbooks for fun.

#32 – Eye

Mirage thinks it's strangely adorable, that in all those old pictures Helen showed her a while ago, Violet had her hair falling forward to nearly cover her face; but Vi always wears her hair pulled back nowadays to let the world see those amazing dark eyes, so it's safe to smile over a childhood quirk.

#33 – Never

"You mean, he _never_ put you into some self-defense training?" Violet asked incredulously, and Mirage shrugged: "No, not really; that's what the gun was for."

#34 – Sing

"I will if you will," Mirage suggests, with a smug little smirk at effectively talking her way out of the carnival karaoke booth, until Violet grins mischievously and hurries over to sign up.

#35 – Sudden

"_That_ was out of nowhere," Violet notes flatly when Mirage announces abruptly, after a session of mild drinking, that she might cut her hair really short and colour it electric blue; "Anything I can do to talk you out of it?"

#36 – Stop

"Well, for one thing, you can stop pulling my hair to get my attention," Mirage suggests half an hour later, after she hangs up the phone and turns to glare playfully at a sheepishly grinning Violet, who's been tugging lightly at her hair and gesturing to the bewildered delivery man at the door.

#37 – Time

It's her second year of university, so the whole _leaving home for school_ thing isn't new, and she knows that her parents and her _favourite girl_ were right and time's going to fly, but she still scares the crap out of poor Dash by dragging him into a soggy bearhug when he reminds her, "Hey, at least you don't have to put up with _me_ all year!"

#38 – Wash

"You _know_ what I mean, Alexandra," Helen says sternly while they're washing the brunch dishes, and Mirage knows she means business because no one _ever_ calls her that anymore; "Do you intend to ask my daughter a certain question sometime soon?"

#39 – Torn

And after several stunned seconds torn between gaping and stammering and _running the hell away_, she finally goes about four shades of red and nods slowly, the beginnings of a wide smile starting to form—just in time to be engulfed in a hug by a beaming redhead.

#40 – History

"This from the girl who calls quantum physics boring," she says dryly when Violet finally has to stop for breath following an ecstatic speech during their weekly phone conversation on why her History of Medieval Music is her new favourite course.

#41 – Power

"Well, _now_ what?" Violet pouts when a raging storm outside knocks the power out seconds before a good old-fashioned New Year's Eve horror movie marathon was set to begin, only to find her mood swiftly improving when her girlfriend gives her a playful little smile and makes a suggestion.

#42 – Bother

"I even put it on a chain, if you want to wear it as a necklace, so you wouldn't have to bother with numerous explanations about your _boyfriend_ actually being a _girl_—" is as far as Mirage gets, rambling with nerves for the first time in years, before Violet carefully slides the pretty, ornate little ring off of the chain and slips it onto her ring finger.

#43 – God

"Oh, come on, even the people who do _bad_ things aren't punished for it until humans step in and do it themselves; why would God punish _us_ for something no one even cares about anymore?" Violet huffs with good-natured impatience in response to her lover's attempts to find out without asking if she's worried at all.

#44 – Wall

"'Kay, who put that wall there?" Violet demanded angrily, glowering at the ceiling, after walking into her own force field the first and last time she ever got _that drunk_, because she woke up with such a miserable headache the next day that she didn't even _need_ Mirage to suggest, between Asprin and ice-cold water, that she take it easy next time.

#45 – Naked

"You know, giving your girlfriend a bathrobe so she doesn't have to run from the shower naked seems like shooting yourself in the foot," Violet observes, nevertheless snuggling the baby-blanket-soft pale blue fabric delightedly.

#46 – Drive

"Yes, Violet's still here; she was _going_ to leave for school tonight," Mirage tells a mystified Helen over the phone, "but I was worried about her, driving icy roads in the dark, so I hid her distributor cap."

#47 – Harm

"I swear, if you didn't look so cute right now, I'd hurt you for this," Violet declares, flinging her bag back onto the bed, while Mirage blinks confusedly and wonders at the power of flannel pyjama pants decorated with sheep riding on clouds.

#48 – Precious

And now Violet's back in school for another semester, smiling dopily and fiddling with her ring so much that her pal Stan – a _really_ nice guy, even if he's a bit of a geek – calls her Golum for the rest of the day.

#49 – Hunger

When Violet heads back home again for summer break, her first move is to jump at the pretty blonde who came running downstairs and out of the building as soon as she saw the car pull up, and all is joyous bliss, until a loud gurgle breaks the silence, because after all, driving for six hours straight works up an appetite.

#50 – Believe

She still finds it a little hard to believe, that she's allowed to be this happy after all she's done to hurt people, because even _good_ people aren't so lucky most of the time; but even if repentance _shouldn't_ be this nice, she makes up her mind, once again, not to fight it, and gives the dark-haired girl stretched out and breathing deeply next to her one final cuddle, and follows her easily to sleep.

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End Notes: Hee! That was fun. I think I'm really starting to like these two together. Probably fluffified both gals to a ridiculous extent, but I'm still learning to control that tendency. XD


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